This year Sant Jordi USA is hybrid, with in-person events in the West Village, New York, and online programming.
PROGRAM 2025
APRIL 23-26
Online
APRIL 23-25
APRIL 23-26
Festival Launch
West Village Video mapping by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger (Laia Cabrera & Co.)
An immersive video mapping projection on the façade of a historic building in the West Village as part of the Sant Jordi Festival, a celebration of literature, culture, and tradition. It will intertwine the rich literary history of the West Village with the iconic Catalan tradition of books and roses, creating a dynamic visual narrative that bridges cultures through storytelling and digital art.
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Wednesday April 23, 6-8 p.m.
The West Village en Español: The West Village is the cradle of American literature—and that includes Latin American literature. And Spanish literature. We will explore these hidden writers with Esther Allen, biographer and translator of José Martí; Suzanne Jill Levine, biographer and translator of Manuel Puig, and Luisa Valenzuela, acclaimed Argentine novelist and former Village dweller. Moderated and orchestrated by Marguerite Feitlowitz.
Thursday, April 24th, 6-8 p.m.
Catalan Women Writers: Frustration, Rage, and Compassion
Hot off the presses, Aram’s Notebook, translated by Ara Merjian (Swan Isle Press, 2025), is the story of a mother and son who escape the Armenian genocide because they have embarked on a pilgrimage. Professors Merjian and Aurélie Vialette will read from and discuss the novel.
The exquisite literary review, THE COMMON, has devoted a dossier to Catalan women writers. Marialena Carr and Mary Ann Newman will read from their translations of Irene Pujadas and Maria Antònia Vicenç and talk with editor Stephanie Malak about the issue, and Ara Merjian and Aurélie Vialette will return to discuss the issues.
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Friday, April 25, 6-8 p.m.
Upending European Literature: Who Sets the Canon? Three Situations
How does our view of European literature change when we go beyond the canon or usual (male) suspects to include the perspectives of women and… others?
Kate Deimling will launch the session with her translation of Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni’s The Story of the Marquis de Cressy in conversation with translator Gary Racz. The book was a best-seller, Diderot was a fan, and yet over the centuries she was erased from literary history in favor of male writers.
Julia Sanches and Emma Ramadan will read and discuss how writers of North African origin are undermining stereotypical expectations of what constitutes the immigrant and first-generation experience in Europe, from the perspective of the novels of Munir Hachemi from Madrid, Meryem El Mehdati from the Canary Islands, and Abdellah Taïa from Paris.
Author Cécile Wajsbrot and translator Tess Lewis will read from and discuss finding language to mirror of repeating European traumas in Nevermore, Wajsbrot's novel about translating Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse.
Then everyone will return for a lively discussion of how translating such books is an antidote to uniformity.
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Saturday, April 26, 12-5 p.m.
Street Fair: Books, Roses, Music & Food
on Christopher St (between 6th Av & Waverly St)
With Kids Activities, DJ, Live Music, Readings and more...
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Live performances by:
Alexis Cuadrado on bass, Nana Simopoulos, guitar, sitar and voice on vocals and keyboards, with spoken word by Pyeng Threadgill and Caryn Heilman (​Catalan/American collaboration)​
Kiyoung Kim, composer, performance will include Sita Chay on violin and Galen Passen on sitar, inspired by the Korean poem “The River” by Su-Kyung Hur
Erica Glyn, yet another uncharacterizable New York musician, who runs the gamut from trip hop to acoustic to filesharing and “deadly serious hooks”
NOIA summons up the extraterrestrial dynamics of Björk’s “Hyperballad” on “reveal yourself,” layering airy falsettos and distorted, pitched-up vocals over a shuffling four-on-the-floor pulse. On the moonlit “otra vida por vivir,” featuring Maria Arnal, she weaves in and out of Catalan beside stuttering circuitry and a gentle but rapturous house-like beat.
Stine An, Korean-American poet, reading translations from the following forthcoming publication of poet Yoo Heekyung's work in English
Peter Carlaftes, Kat Georges, Andrei Codrescu, Jane LeCroy: poets attached to Village presses (Three Rooms and Pink Trees)
Silvia Albert Sopale, the brilliant Afro-Spanish actress and playwright currently in residence at NYU’s Espacio de Culturas
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